Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Metroid Prime: Federation Force Announced

Outside TriForce Heroes the whole Nintendo Digital event can be summed up for me with one word: underwhelming. Star Fox Zero didn't look all that great, other games already have been shown last year and then there was Metroid Prime: Federation Force...

Well, I was right about that Blast Ball looked like from a Metroid Prime Hunters sequel, but overall it's very underwhelming. This is the first new Metroid title in FIVE years. They cancelled a 2,5D Metroid on the 3DS and decided to give us this instead? It's even from the same developer, Next Level Games, who released this concept art from their original proposal:

It got ditched in favor of Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon and now this? Instead of playing Samus Aran and other cool space bounty hunters, you're going to play as federation troops? Those are cannon fodder! This is a massive step back from Metroid Prime Hunters and not very exciting.

I probably wouldn't mind as much, if they had announced Metroid Prime 4 for Wii U along with it, but they didn't. There weren't any news about Retro Studios or an actual new Metroid game. Very disappointing...

Metroid Prime 4 is the one big title the Wii U really needs next to Zelda U, in order to become a solid Nintendo system with a good library. Kensuke Tanabe is even actively talking about the game. Of course he makes it sound like nothing is in development so far, but he sounds quite similar to how Aonuma always denied Majora's Mask 3D happening. This and the fact that Retro Studios is working on something, still makes me hopeful for Metroid Prime 4 on Wii U. It needs to happen, the GamePad is simply too perfect for a new Metroid Prime.